A Lot Like Christmas: Stories

by Connie Willis

  “No what?”

  “No logo. Nothing qualifies as a full-fledged crisis until the cable news channels give it a logo of its own, preferably with a colon. You know, O.J.: Trial of the Century or Sniper at Large or Attack: Iraq.” He pointed at Dan Rather standing in thickly falling snow in front of the White House. “Look, it says Breaking News, but there’s no logo. So it can’t be a discontinuity. So feed me those temps. And then go see if you can scare up a couple more TVs. I want to get a look at exactly what’s going on out there. Maybe that’ll give us some kind of clue.”

  Chin nodded, looking reassured, and went to get the temp readings. They were all over the place, too, from eighteen below in Saskatoon to thirty-one above in Fort Lauderdale. Nathan ran them against average temps for mid-December and then highs and lows for the twenty-fourth, looking for patterns, anomalies.

  Chin wheeled in a big-screen TV on an AV cart, along with Professor Adler’s portable, and plugged them in. “What do you want these on?” he asked.

  “CNN, the Weather Channel, Fox—” Nathan began.

  “Oh, no,” Chin said.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Look,” Chin said, and pointed to Professor Adler’s portable. Wolf Blitzer was standing in the snow in front of the Empire State Building. At the lower right-hand corner was the CNN symbol. And in the upper left-hand corner: Storm of the Century.

  As soon as Pilar had Miguel’s things packed, she checked on the TV again.

  “—resulting in terrible road conditions,” the reporter was saying. “Police are reporting accidents at the intersection of Sepulveda and Figueroa, the intersection of San Pedro and Whittier, the intersection of Hollywood and Vine,” while accident alerts crawled across the bottom of the screen. “We’re getting reports of a problem on the Santa Monica Freeway just past the Culver City exit and…this just in: The northbound lanes of the 110 are closed due to a five-car accident. Travelers are advised to take alternate routes.”

  The phone rang. Miguel ran into the kitchen to answer it. “Hi, Daddy, it’s snowing,” he shouted into the receiver. “We’re going outside and make a snowman,” and then said, “Okay,” and handed it to Pilar.

  “Go watch cartoons and let Mommy talk to Daddy,” she said, and handed him the remote. “Hello, Joe.”

  “I want you to bring Miguel down now,” her ex-husband said without preamble, “before the snow gets bad.”

  “It’s already bad,” Pilar said, standing in the door of the kitchen watching Miguel flip through the channels:

  “—really slick out here—”

  “—advised to stay home. If you don’t have to go someplace, folks, don’t.”

  “—treacherous conditions—”

  “I’m not sure taking him out in this is a good idea,” Pilar said. “The TV’s saying the roads are really slick, and—”

  “And I’m saying bring him down here now,” Joe said nastily. “I know what you’re doing. You think you can use a little snow as an excuse to keep my son away from me on Christmas.”

  “I am not,” she protested. “I’m just thinking about Miguel’s safety. I don’t have snow tires—”

  “Like hell you’re thinking about the kid! You’re thinking this is a way to do me out of my rights. Well, we’ll see what my lawyer has to say about that. I’m calling him and the judge and telling them what you’re up to, and that I’m sick of this crap, I want full custody. And then I’m coming up there myself to get him. Have him ready when I get there!” he shouted and hung up the phone.

  At 2:22 P.M., Luke’s mother called on her cell phone to say she was going to be late and to go ahead and start the goose. “The roads are terrible, and people do not know how to drive. This red Subaru ahead of me just swerved into my lane and—”

  “Mom, Mom,” Luke cut in, “the goose. What do you mean, start the goose? What do I have to do?”

  “Just put it in the oven. Shorty and Madge should be there soon, and she can take over. All you have to do is get it started. Take the bag of giblets out first. Put an aluminum foil tent over it.”

  “An aluminum foil what?”

  “Tent. Fold a piece of foil in half and lay it over the goose. It keeps it from browning too fast.”

  “How big a piece?”

  “Big enough to cover the goose. And don’t tuck in the edges.”

  “Of the oven?”

  “Of the tent. You’re making this much harder than it is. You wouldn’t believe how many cars there are off the road, and every one of them’s an SUV. It serves them right. They think just because they’ve got four-wheel drive, they can go ninety miles an hour in a blizzard—”

  “Mom, Mom, what about stuffing? Don’t I have to stuff the goose?”

  “No. Nobody does stuffing inside the bird anymore. Salmonella. Just put the goose in the roasting pan and stick it in the oven. At 350 degrees.”

  I can do that, Luke thought, and did. Ten minutes later he realized he’d forgotten to put the aluminum foil tent on. It took him three tries to get a piece the right size, and his mother hadn’t said whether the shiny or the dull side should be facing out, but when he checked the goose twenty minutes later, it seemed to be doing okay. It smelled good, and there were already juices forming in the pan.

  After Pilar hung up with Joe, she sat at the kitchen table a long time, trying to think which was worse, letting Joe take Miguel out into this snowstorm or having Miguel witness the fight that would ensue if she tried to stop him. “Please, please…” she murmured, without even knowing what she was praying for.

  Miguel came into the kitchen and climbed into her lap. She wiped hastily at her eyes. “Guess what, honey?” she said brightly. “Daddy’s going to come get you in a little bit. You need to go pick out which toys you want to take.”

  “Hunh-unh,” Miguel said, shaking his head.

  “I know you wanted to make a snowman,” she said, “but guess what? It’s snowing in Escondido, too. You can make a snowman with Daddy.”

  “Hunh-unh,” he said, climbing down off her lap and tugging on her hand. He led her into the living room.

  “What, honey?” she said, and he pointed at the TV. On it, the Santa Monica reporter was saying, “—the following road closures: I-5 from Chula Vista to Santa Ana, I-15 from San Diego to Barstow, Highway 78 from Oceanside to Escondido—”

  Thank you, she murmured silently, thank you. Miguel ran out to the kitchen and came back with a piece of construction paper and a red crayon. “Here,” he said, thrusting them at Pilar. “You have to write Santa. So he’ll know to bring my presents here and not Daddy’s.”

  By ordering sopapillas and then Mexican coffee, Bev managed to make lunch last till nearly 2 o’clock. When Carmelita brought the coffee, she looked anxiously out at the snow piling up on the patio and then back at Bev, so Bev asked for her check and signed it so Carmelita could leave, and then went back up to her room for her coat and gloves.

  Even if the shops were closed, she could window-shop, she told herself, she could look at the Navajo rugs and Santa Clara pots and Indian jewelry displayed in the shops, but the snowstorm was getting worse. The luminarias that lined the walls were heaped with snow, the paper bags that held the candles sagging wetly under its weight.

  They’ll never get them lit, Bev thought, turning into the Plaza.

  By the time she had walked down one side of it, the snow had become a blizzard, it was coming down so hard you couldn’t see across the Plaza, and there was a cutting wind. She gave up and went back to the hotel.

  In the lobby, the staff, including the front desk clerk and Carmelita in her coat and boots, was gathered in front of the TV looking at a weather map of New Mexico. “…currently snowing in most of New Mexico,” the announcer was saying, “including Gallup, Carlsbad, Ruidoso, and Roswell. Travel advisories out for central, western, and southern New Mexico, including Lordsburg, Las Cruces, and Truth or Consequences. It looks like a white Christmas for most of New Mexico, folks.”

 
“You have two messages,” the front desk clerk said when he saw her. They were both from Janice, and she phoned again while Bev was taking her coat off.

  “I just saw on TV that it’s snowing in Santa Fe, and you said you were going sightseeing,” Janice said. “I just wondered if you were okay.”

  “I’m here at the hotel,” Bev said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Good,” Janice said, relieved. “Are you watching TV? The weathermen are saying this isn’t an ordinary storm. It’s some kind of extreme megastorm. We’ve got three feet here. The power’s out all over town, and the airport just closed. I hope you’re able to get home. Oops, the lights just flickered. I’d better go hunt up some candles before the lights go off,” she said, and hung up.

  Bev turned on the TV. The local channel was listing closings—“The First United Methodist Church Christmas pageant has been canceled and there will be no Posadas tonight at Our Lady of Guadalupe. Canyon Day Care Center will close at 3 P.M….”

  She clicked the remote. CNBC was discussing earlier Christmas Eve snowstorms, and on CNN, Daryn Kagan was standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue in a snowdrift. “This is usually the busiest shopping day of the year,” she said, “but as you can see—”

  She clicked the remote, looking for a movie to watch. Howard would have loved this, she thought involuntarily. He would have been in his element.

  She clicked quickly through the other channels, trying to find a movie to watch, but they were all discussing the weather. “It looks like the whole country’s going to get a white Christmas this year,” Anderson Cooper was saying, “whether they want it or not.”

  You’d think there’d be a Christmas movie on, Bev thought grimly, flipping through the channels again. It’s Christmas Eve. Christmas in Connecticut or Holiday Inn. Or White Christmas.

  Howard had insisted on watching it every time he came across it with the remote, even if it was nearly over. “Why are you watching that?” she’d ask, coming in to find him watching the next-to-the-last scene. “We own the video.”

  “Shh,” he’d say. “It’s just getting to the good part,” and he’d lean forward to watch Bing Crosby push open the barn doors to reveal fake-looking snow falling on the equally fake-looking set.

  When he came into the kitchen afterward, she’d say sarcastically, “How’d it end this time? Did Bing and Rosemary Clooney get back together? Did they save the General’s inn and all live happily ever after?”

  But Howard would refuse to be baited. “They got a white Christmas,” he’d say happily, and go off to look out the windows at the clouds.

  Except for news about the storm, there was nothing at all on except an infomercial selling a set of Ginsu knives. How appropriate, she thought, and sat back on the bed to watch it.

  At 2:08, the weight of the new loose snow triggered a huge avalanche in the “awesome slopes” area near Breckenridge, knocking down huge numbers of Ponderosa pines and burying everything in its path, but not Kent and Bodine, who were still in their Honda, trying to keep warm and survive on a box of Tic-Tacs and an old doughnut they found in the glove compartment.

  By 2:30, Madge and Shorty still weren’t there, so Luke checked the goose. It seemed to be cooking okay, but there was an awful lot of juice in the pan. When he checked it again half an hour later, there was over an inch of the stuff.

  That couldn’t be right. The last time he’d gotten stuck with having the Christmas Eve dinner, the turkey had only produced a few tablespoons of juice. He remembered his mom pouring them off to make the gravy.

  He tried his mom. Her cell phone said, “Caller unavailable,” which meant her batteries had run down, or she’d turned it off. He tried Aunt Madge. No answer.

  He dug the plastic and net wrapping the goose had come in out of the trash, flattened it out, and read the instructions: “Roast uncovered at 350˚ for twenty-five minutes per pound.”

  Uncovered. That must be the problem, the aluminum foil tent. It wasn’t allowing the extra juice to evaporate. He opened the oven and removed it. When he checked the goose again fifteen minutes later, it was sitting in two inches of grease, and even though, according to the wrapping, it still had three hours to go, the goose was getting brown and crispy on top.

  At 2:51 P.M., Joe Gutierrez slammed out of his house and started up to get Miguel. He’d been trying ever since he hung up on Pilar to get his goddamned lawyer on the phone, but he wasn’t answering.

  The streets were a real mess, and when Joe got to the I-15 entrance ramp, there was a barricade across it. He roared back down the street to take Highway 78, but it was blocked, too. He stormed back home and called Pilar’s lawyer, but he didn’t answer, either. He then called the judge, using the unlisted cell phone number he’d seen on his lawyer’s PalmPilot.

  The judge, who had been stuck waiting for AAA in a Starbucks at the Bakersfield exit, listening to Harry Connick, Jr., destroy “White Christmas” for the last three hours, was not particularly sympathetic, especially when Joe started swearing at him.

  Words were exchanged, and the judge made a note to himself to have Joe declared in contempt of court. Then he called AAA to see what was taking so long, and when the operator told him he was nineteenth in line, and it would be at least another four hours, he decided to revisit the entire custody agreement.

  By 3 o’clock, all the networks and cable news channels had logos. ABC had Winter Wonderland, NBC had Super Storm, and Fox News had Winter Wallop. CBS and MSNBC had both gone with White Christmas, flanked by a photo of Bing Crosby (MSNBC’s wearing the Santa Claus hat from the movie).

  The Weather Channel’s logo was a changing world map that was now two thirds white, and snow was being reported in Karachi, Seoul, the Solomon Islands, and Bethlehem, where Christmas Eve services (usually canceled due to Israeli–Palestinian violence) had been canceled due to the weather.

  At 3:15 P.M., Jim called Paula from the airport to report that Kindra’s and David’s flights had both been delayed indefinitely. “And the USAir guy says they’re shutting down the airport in Houston. Dallas International’s already closed, and so are JFK and O’Hare. How’s Stacey?”

  Incorrigible, Paula thought. “Fine,” she said. “Do you want to talk to her?”

  “No. Listen, tell her I’m still hoping, but it doesn’t look good.”

  Paula told her, but it didn’t have any effect. “Go get your dress on,” Stacey ordered her, “so the minister can run through the service with you, and then you can show Kindra and David where to stand when they get here.”

  Paula went and put on her bridesmaid dress, wishing it wasn’t sleeveless, and they went through the rehearsal with the viola player, who had changed into his tux to get out of his snow-damp clothes, acting as best man. As soon as they were done, Paula went into the vestry to get a sweater out of her suitcase. The minister came in and shut the door. “I’ve been trying to talk to Stacey,” she said. “You’re going to have to cancel the wedding. The roads are getting really dangerous, and I just heard on the radio they’ve closed the interstate.”

  “I know,” Paula said.

  “Well, she doesn’t. She’s convinced everything’s going to work out.”

  And it might, Paula thought. After all, this is Stacey.

  The viola player poked his head in the door. “Good news,” he said.

  “The string quartet’s here?” the minister said.

  “Jim’s here?” Paula said.

  “No, but Shep and Leif found the cello player. He’s got frostbite, but otherwise he’s okay. They’re taking him to the hospital.” He gestured toward the sanctuary. “Do you want to tell the Queen of Denial, or shall I?”

  “I will,” Paula said, and went back into the sanctuary. “Stacey—”

  “Your dress looks beautiful!” Stacey cried, and dragged her over to the windows. “Look how it goes with the snow!”

  When the doorbell rang at a quarter to four, Luke thought, Finally! Mom! and literally ran to answer the door. It was A
unt Lulla. He looked hopefully past her, but there was no one else pulling into the driveway or coming up the street. “You don’t know anything about cooking a goose, do you?” he asked.

  She looked at him a long, silent moment and then handed him the plate of olives she’d brought and took off her hat, scarf, gloves, plastic boots, and old-lady coat. “Your mother and Madge were always the domestic ones,” she said. “I was the theatrical one,” and while he was digesting that odd piece of information, “Why did you ask? Is your goose cooked?”

  “Yes,” he said, and led her into the kitchen and showed her the goose, which was now swimming in a sea of fat.

  “Good God!” Aunt Lulla said. “Where did all that grease come from?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Well, the first thing to do is pour some of it off before the poor thing drowns.”

  “I already did,” Luke said. He took the lid off the saucepan he’d poured the drippings into earlier.

  “Well, you need to pour off some more,” she said practically, “and you’ll need a larger pan. Or maybe we should just pour it down the sink and get rid of the evidence.”

  “It’s for the gravy,” he said, rummaging in the cupboard under the sink for the big pot his mother had given him to cook spaghetti in.

  “Oh, of course,” she said, and then thoughtfully, “I do know how to make gravy. Alec Guinness taught me.”

  Luke stuck his head out of the cupboard. “Alec Guinness taught you to make gravy?”

  “It’s not really all that difficult,” she said, opening the oven door and looking speculatively at the goose. “You wouldn’t happen to have any wine on hand, would you?”

  “Yes.” He emerged with the pot. “Why? Will wine counteract the grease?”

  “I have no idea,” she said, “but one of the things I learned when I was playing off-Broadway was that when you’re facing a flop or an opening night curtain, it helps to be a little sloshed.”

  “You played off-Broadway?” Luke said. “Mom never told me you were an actress.”